cowardiet

[ME., see coward, n.] Cowardice. Chaucer. cowardize (kou'är-diz), v. t. [ Wickedne naturally tends to dishearten and cowardize men. J. Scott, Sermon before the Artillery Company (1680). [ cow-bird (kouʼbėrd), n. 1. An oscine pa erine bird of America, belonging to the family Icteridæ and genus Molothrus; especially, M. ater or M. pecoris, so called from its accompanying cattle. It is polygamous and parasitic, depositing its eggs in the nests of other birds, like the European cuckoo, and leaving then i Cow-bird (Molothrus ater). to be hatched by the foster-parents. The male is from 74 to 8 inches long, glo y black with metallic sheen and a chocolate-brown head; the female is smaller and dull dark-brownish. This species i is very abundant in the United States. cowheard 3. One of a band of marauders during the American revolution, chiefly refugees belonging to the British side, who infested the neutral ground between the British and American lines in the neighborhood of New York, and plundered the whigs or revolutionists. West Chester County... was now [1780] almost wholly at the mercy of the revolutionary banditti called the Cow boys. Lecky, Eng. in 18th Cent., xiv.